ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a framework by drawing upon the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to conceptualize health as a mind-body-world phenomenon. The case of psychosomatic ill health will be used in order to show how insights on the lived body provide a fruitful grounding of health and well-being as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. International research points to the increasing prevalence of patients with psychosomatic health-related issues seeking health care within primary health care. Clinicians in primary care are seldom prepared for the patients in terms of expertise, treatment strategies or communication skills. Phenomenology is the philosophical movement in Continental philosophy arising from the philosophical works of Edmund Husserl. When psychosomatic health and well-being is established, one's way of being-in-the-world is characterized by the seamless flow of the lived body. The ability to allow different "poles" of this mind-body-world unity to dominate is reinstated.
